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These are some of the things we’ve been reading about:

Even after many African-American students receive an ADHD diagnosis, their symptoms are going untreated.

Thanks to the Every Student Succeeds Act, states are paying more attention to chronic absenteeism from pre-K through twelfth grade.

Attending a low-quality child care program hurts boys more than girls. So just expanding access to these programs isn’t enough, according to a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

To read more, click on the following links.

Research

Is Mindfulness Meditation Good for Kids? Here’s What the Science Actually Says.
Vox: The relatively few studies we have on mindfulness in schools suggest a generally positive effect on decreasing anxiety and increasing cognitive performance. But the hype around mindfulness also seems to be outpacing the science, especially when it comes to teaching these practices to children.

Study: ADHD Symptoms Are Going Untreated in Black Youth
NBC News: Are troublesome ADHD symptoms going untreated in African-American youth even after they are diagnosed? According to a recent study published in Pediatrics, the answer is yes. Researchers found that African-American youth with ADHD are more likely to go off their medication and less likely to have adequate follow-up than their white counterparts.

Policy

Using ESSA to Tackle Chronic Absence from Pre-K to K-12
New America: As states work to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, one of the most positive developments is the frequency with which they are adopting chronic absence as the indicator of school quality or student success. From our perspective, the inclusion of chronic absence also provides a golden opportunity to create strong, appropriate, and effective links between pre-K and K-12 education. By adopting chronic absence data as a key diagnostic measure, pre-K teachers can enhance their efforts to ready young children for kindergarten.

How Would Trump’s School Choice Innovation Research Grants Work?
Ed Week Inside School Research Blog: The Education Innovation and Research grant program would get more than triple the funding under President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal 2018 budget, but the increase would go almost entirely to a new initiative to study private school voucher programs.

Around the Nation

Preschool, A State-By-State Update
NPR Ed Blog: More states than ever are providing publicly funded preschool. That’s according to a new report from the National Institute for Early Education Research, which has been tracking state preschool policies and programs since 2002. The report found the during 2016, 43 states, plus the District of Columbia and Guam, provided publicly funded preschool. They served some 1.5 million children across the country. Total state spending on preschool rose to about $7.4 billion, an eight percent increase over the previous year, which has increased spending to nearly $5,000 per child.

Teachers Reveal How Education Has Changed Dramatically Over the Past 20 Years
Business Insider: Across the United States, thousands of college graduates are taking the final steps in their education. A lot has happened since they were born in the mid-1990s, and perhaps no one has seen the effects of those changes more than teachers. Business Insider spoke with a handful of elementary, middle, and high school teachers to get a sense of just how much the education system has evolved over the past 20 years.

Why Expanding Access to Childcare Isn’t Enough
The Atlantic: According to a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, it is the quality of the childcare, not simply the presence of it, that matters. Relying on data from childcare programs serving disadvantaged children in North Carolina, the researchers found a gender gap exists in the long-term outcomes of preschool and that boys are more vulnerable than girls if exposed to facilities that aren’t meeting high standards.

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